In one of the more unusual interviews I've seen for a new, licensed sports game, the producer of Mike Vick: GameTime, on iOS, asked that his real name not be used. Might being associated with Vick, the NFL quarterback who did federal time for running a dogfighting operation, have something to do with that?

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"Not at all," said "Josh," of KBJGames, to me, in an email. "I love Vick." The problem is GameTime is a side gig; he is a consultant in his daytime job and "Josh" says he doesn't want his main client to "even slightly question if I am spending time on personal projects while at work."

Though "Josh" said his employer knows of his work, their client is large enough that I suspect it may have a problem with even a tangential association to Vick. "Josh," in his interview today with VentureBeat, describes being hounded by anti-Vick forces on Facebook and in iTunes reviews of the game. Vick himself canceled a book tour this spring because of death threats.

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Vick did 23 months in Leavenworth after pleading guilty in 2007 to his role in a dogfighting operation and admitting to the brutal executions of losing animals he trained for it. Even if he was a finalist in the Madden NFL 12 cover contest, there still is a lot of bad will out there, and probably always will be.

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If there's anyone who is willing to put his real name on this work, it's Damian Griffin, an iOS developer who made Pocket Passer, which I reviewed a couple years ago. Some of Pocket Passer's gameplay is incorporated into Mike Vick: GameTime, though it also features running plays and controls. The game currently is free on iOS, with pay-to-upgrade in-app purchases.